Asides

Stage One: First Childhood – Birth through Age Seven
A time of dependence and growth, these are some of the finest days in a woman’s life. Carefree and cared for, each daughter of the Queendom is beloved by all, since daughters are the lifeblood of the Queendom.

Talia, a woman of great strength in our time and place, agreed to be the model Evlantian solider!Talia placed in a competition and graciously let me use this updated picture my blog!

In a city of blood feuds and cat fights, an army of strong, smart women is essential. The Soldier Sector attracts residents for whom physical fitness is a top priority. Being a soldier in a city of women also requires a great deal of intelligence and intuition; psychological tactics keep the women of the Queendom in line, while brawn keeps the male slaves subdued.

The Soldier Sector works hand-in-glove with the High Queen and the Government Sector. The troops are least likely to be seen on duty in the Religion Sector and are most often assigned to work in the Arts Sector where the greatest amount of mayhem occurs. The soldiers keep order and solve crimes. They guard prisoners and slaves, as well as patrol to keep the citizens in the great city. They drill and train to stay combat ready. There have been no wars fought in the recent herstory of Evlantis, but smart rulers know the importance of keeping a fighting force ready.

In addition to their physical strength and their tactical expertise, most soldiers’ strengths include: logic, a love or order, loyalty to their comrades in arms, and a highly competitive nature. It is the only Sector where there are tests to weed out applicants. It is one of two Sectors where the women take vows of chastity.

The City of Evlantis is ruled by women, for women. The city is divided into six clique-like sectors.

My sister (dressed as a princess) riding her horse, Maarz (dressed as a dragon) at a horse show. When I asked her if I could use this picture she responded, “As long as Maarz gets credit!”

The women of the Livestock Sector have the “critter gene”! They love animals, and that love is returned in kind. These women are conscientious, responsible, and effective. They are the shepherdesses and keepers of the flocks. They breed animals to be pets for other sectors. In addition to tending animals, they specialize in fashions, having a monopoly on wool and furs. Their love for the animal queendom is often blamed for the high rate of convictions and deaths of those citizens who break the ban of love between women and men-slaves.

A friend wasn’t able to model for this blog…so I used pictures of my Grandma Polly. She was a missionary to Singapore in the 1950s. I had fun looking through all the photos.

The City of Evlantis is ruled by women, for women. The city is divided into six clique-like sectors.

The Religion Sector attracts women of great vision and intuition. They are in touch with their spiritual nature, aware that the world and everyone in it is connected by far more than our senses can take in. Part of what fulfills women in the Religion Sector is finding and fostering growth in others around them. In their religion, there is a goddess for every want or need known to women, and the priestesses guide the women of the other Sectors to properly supplicate to the goddesses to meet their needs. Another vital function the priestesses fill is to educate the children of Evlantis.

The Arts Sector houses the creative women of the city of Evlantis. Only women with extraordinary talent may apply for citizenship in this Sector: the painters, the writers, the musicians, the dancers, the actresses, and the sculptors. The other five Sectors provide services necessary for the survival the Queendom. The women of the Arts Sector must survive on their ingenuity for they provide works of aesthetic pleasure.

The women of the Arts Sector value emotional expression. They love to an extreme and hate to an extreme. It is the Sector where the laws are tested and most often broken. It is the Sector where the most murders are committed. There is a rivalry between the women of the Arts Sector and the women of the Soldier Sector because of their oppositional ideologies.

In the Queedom of Evlantis, where women are in charge and the men are in chains, most of the heroes are women. The villain, Sephora, is also a woman.

I wanted to create a female villain so diabolical that readers would hate her. I didn’t want her to possess any redeeming qualities. From the feedback I’ve gotten so far, I succeeded. There was only one problem. She slipped out of my control for a while.

I managed to contain her activities to my agenda in book one. In book two, however, Sephora ran away with the plot for a while. I stopped writing. I found myself weeping, especially over the damage she did to Hannah, one of my favorite characters. I even had trouble sleeping as Sephora began to give me nightmares.

Then, one day, I figured it out. I am the woman in charge of this world! I headed to my computer and deleted the worst of the worst of her actions, including what she did to Hannah. From that point on Sephora never gave me another nightmare!

There’s a fine short story behind this list of Evlantian Wisdom. A friend of mine, Karen, told me she was pregnant and then found out she was having a daughter. One thought led to another and soon I had a list of Evlantian lore-popular during the rule of High Queen Rachel-to share with my friend. Then I realized the list would make a fine blog. I asked Karen to be my model, and she agreed. Thank you, Karen and daughter!

Child Rearing Wisdom, Evlantis Style

There is no higher purpose, no higher calling in life than to be chosen by Ephrea, the Lifegiver, to bear and raise a daughter. This calling is a mighty and holy purpose and the goddess would not have chosen you if you were not worthy. Hold your head high, holy mother, and know that when you need the strength and wisdom of the goddesses when walking the path of motherhood that if you cry out to Ephrea she will then dispense a goddess to answer you. (Attributed toAllurnius, First High Priestess/Low Queen of the Religion Sector of Evlantis)

Friends and Lovers come and go, a Daughter is forever. (Unknown)

Each day with a daughter hold infinite blessings. Find each one and celebrate it well, for as the daughter goes, so goes the future of Evlantis. Blessings bring more blessings, while curses increase curses. (Attributed to High Queen Cleopas the Wise)

Look Well, Ponder Well

Look well in the mirror and see the face of your GrandMother. Ponder the wisdom you gained from her and pass it on to your daughter.

Look well in the mirror and see the face of your Mother. Ponder the wisdom you gained from her and pass it on to your Daughter. Ponder the follies that made her huwoman and resolve to pass new strengths and not her old ones, on to the next generation of womankind in your care.

Look well in the mirror and see your own face. Ponder well your strengths, your wisdom, your learning and pass what is good down to your daughter. Ponder well your weaknesses, your shortcomings and your ignorance and strive to be a better woman so that your daughter may learn to handle her own huwomanity and shortcomings with grace and dignity by watching you deal with your own.

Look well, Ponder well, and when you are overwhelmed, remember, no woman, save Mother Eve, was the ideal woman.

(by the Poetess Gralalia. In High Queen Rachel’s day, school children had to memorize this in their third year of school and later, recite it by heart to a priestess as part of the pre-quickening rituals. Young women were also expected, at that time, to name seven of their strengths and three of their weaknesses, and to explain who their strengths and weaknesses were inherited from, to show that they had taken to poem to heart.)

Keep in mind that the Daughter that vexes you may someday be your Queen. (Sapheera of the Arts)

Every day in Evlantis is Daughter’s Day. (High Queen Rachel, the year her womb-born daughter Rebekkah survived the plague)

It is never too early to celebrate Mother’s Day. (Low Queen Sephora of the Arts Sector)

Blessed be the woman who bears and raises a daughter who bears and raises a daughter! Her name shall be entered into the Evlantian Book of Life. Cursed and shamed is the woman who bears three sons, her name will be shunned from the Herstorical Record and she shall live as a ghost among the living, fruitful women. Better for her to have gone unborn than to have quickened inferior beings and no daughters. (Ancient saying attributed to Morvutti, the first known midwife.)

In thee household let thy daughter be a Princess, but never forget! Thou art the Queen. (Ancient saying attributed to Mother Eve)

My kitchen is a place where strange and wonderful things happen. Examples of the strange (they’ve only happened once): tuna manicotti, pumpkin soup. A sample of the wonderful: broccoli quiche, stuffed peppers. But I’m not just referring to recipes. My kitchen is a twilight zone of odd occurrences. Don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself!

A lonely little lemon in an onion wrap.

I will admit to being somewhat skeptical, but I may have gotten a truthful explanation for this one. Someone claims this lemon rolled off a counter and when it was set it back upon the shelf the lemon rolled right into an errant onion peel!

M&M droppings in the butter.

The jury is still out on this one, but I’m thinking tiny elves were running around on my counter tops in the middle of the night with their arms full of M&Ms. One of them must have slipped in the butter, which surely alerted the dogs to their presence. The elves must have been forced to flee without collecting all of their candy. Note to self: train the dogs to be kind to visiting elves.

Cheese puff taco.

This one had some help from me. I walked by a counter and spotted one lone cheese puff sitting in a taco shell. I presumed a hasty snacker had accidentally dropped it there. I sacrificed a small bag of puffy cheesy snacks to satisfy my sense of humor, snapped this picture, and left my creation on the counter. Hopefully the elves had as good a laugh over this as I did!

Then there’s salmonella stew…but I’ll save that picture and story for another post.

It seems appropriate that while my sixteen-year-old daughter is chasing her dream of modeling/acting at a not-so-local event, I am holed up in a hotel still chasing mine. A rare entire-day to edit my second book has come along, slightly more than forty-eight hours before I let go of the financial tether that my day job has provided and leap into a new venture with a fair amount of risk. The new venture affords me time to write daily, a clear avenue onto my personal Street of Dreams.

The drive into Syracuse—the cozy, hilly city nestled between the thumb and Finger Lakes in Central NY—last night was breathtaking. The autumn foliage was nothing less than spectacular. Deer grazed at the edge of the thruway in spots as the sunlight faded poetically from day to night during the drive. It was an out-of-the-ordinary drive into an out-of-the-ordinary editing adventure!

It is no wonder that before I settle down to the work slicing and dicing the final draft of Sephora’s Revenge that the reality of quitting my day job has finally sunk in. I love the work I’ve done for the past five years, but I’m at a place where it is interfering with my writing. I wonder if I’ll be able to make enough money in the coming months to pay for groceries, medicine, pet food, and gas. It was a sure thing with the day job. Am I crazy as a loon to be leaving or as smart as a fox? Am I talking to myself now, asking rhetorical animal questions while I could be using my eagle eye to edit? Absolutely, which means it is time to close this file and click into another. The reverie was short and sweet. Time for action…Evlantis, here I come!